1.20.2015

Chicken, Oyster Gumbo With Smoked Andouille Sausage

So far, it's been a cold and dreary start to the new year. "Gumbo weather", so we thawed out a frozen hen. Then, much to our delight, Saturday dawned sunny and warm. Anyway, we decided to go ahead and put a gumbo on the stove simmering away while we spent the day in the yard enjoying the sunshine. This time, instead of Peggy's usual smoked chicken gumbo, I started by whacking up a big baking hen we had scored on sale, which has been sitting in the freezer awaiting it's future.

The breast on these old hens is big and can be dry when cooked, so what I do is take it off the bone and cube it into smaller pieces instead of leaving it whole.

The chicken goes into a pot of water with our usual suspects.

Crystal hot sauce,

Worcestershire sauce

Our blend of Cajun spice

and a pack of our friend Sam's homemade smoky Andouille sausage.

As this slowly came to a simmer we cut up the Cajun vegetable medley of onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic with a couple cayenne peppers.

Peggy put her gluten-free roux to cooking and when it got to the desired color, instead of putting it directly into the pot, we cool it off and stop the browning, by adding some of the chopped vegetable mix to it. Her roux uses plain brown rice flour and olive oil.

Once the veggies had cooled the roux, it was added to the pot. When the pot came to a simmer, we covered it and left it while we went play in the yard for about 4 hours, stirring occasionally. When we came in from the yard for the day, put on a pot of rice to accompany our gumbo, and added the finishing touches to the pot. A special 'finishing touch': adding a pint of salty oysters that we had bought from the local seafood stand.

and the file`...can't have file` gumbo without the file`.

It smelled so good in the house, that while we were outside, MarkyBear the ol' "Sergeant doggy" sat inside keeping the pot company all day.

Something about the flavor combination of the chicken and oysters makes for an amazing simple gumbo. They are the sort of things that taste far better together, than apart and many a non-oyster-lover has fallen in love with this gumbo, despite their dislike of oysters.

We saved you a bowl.

If you have never tried this unique flavor combination we strongly recommend you do. Let us know how yours comes out. We always look forward to hearing from you.